guidelines for copywork-all ages

Copywork has a different purpose in my mind, so let me explain.  Copywork is done to work on handwriting.  The goal with copywork is to do your best effort for a short (appropriate to age/ability) period of time.  Now, to see how it feels, grab a favorite book and write from it for even 5 minutes (let’s do in CURSIVE for a challenge) and remember you are aiming for best effort – beautiful handwriting.  Use a timer.  At the end of even 5 minutes it gets difficult!  Don’t expect your children to do their best effort for an unreasonable amount of handwriting/copywork.

For seeing models of well written work there are a few things I would do:

1. Have them read great literature.

2. Have them listen to great literature read aloud.

3. Try prepared dictation.  (You can look it up on the SCM site, check out their blog archives by topic).

The other thing to work on is oral narration.  Yes, it will be short and potentially pathetic at first.  Don’t worry about that!  We all do poorly in the beginning of a new skill, and even in the middle of it.  Give them time to narrate orally and begin with shorter passages of reading.  Aesop’s fables tend to be a great starting place that won’t feel too ‘babyish’ even at their ages.  I wouldn’t expect great narrations after reading a whole chapter of a book to them!  They need to develop those oral narration muscles.  In 6 months you’ll see improvement.  In a year or two it will be even more of an improvement.

For perspective, oral narration involves a lot of skills:

– Listening/reading

– Thinking about what was read.

– Putting things in order in your head.

– Holding your sentences in order while speaking.

– Possibly adding your own observations on the material.

– Holding in your head proper grammatical constructions (saying it well).

(The only thing that is removed is the physical act of writing by hand.)

You can ask for written narration – start with once a week.  Don’t panic when it is shorter than their oral narrations, just accept it, praise what you can, and give them time to improve (months and months).

Agreed, for your 9th grader you can begin with one written narration per week and then increase it after a few months to two, etc.

Oral narration – the more practice the better, so I would feel free to have them narrate many of their subjects, but maybe begin with 1 or 2 and add another subject to the narration list each week?  At my house kids narrate the book they are reading independently for literature, the history read aloud, the book club read aloud, the science reading (I read it, the kids narrate, or we do an experiment and they narrate what we did and what happened, what they think about it, etc).  I’ll also keep an eye out for natural narration opportunities like when they begin to tell me all about something they saw/watched/read/did.  For one of my boys this means listening to endless talk of Lego creations (which bore me) for another child it is what they plan to do on their once a week Minecraft turn (yawn), for yet another it is about the animals and happenings at the local animal shelter.  Are these MY interests?  No.  But because they are willingly talking about it I try to listen as they naturally narrate it out of enthusiasm.

Also, don’t make a huge deal about narration to them.  If they come to me to tell me about that day’s chapter in their literature book I stop what I’m doing to listen and don’t even have to prompt their narration.  Keep it varied and not always formal.  A quick, “So what’s happening in your book?”  or “What did you think about the way that the colonists handled the tax increases?” or “What would you have done if you had been Madame Curie?” can be great starters that aren’t the formal, “Narrate what you learned today in _____.”

So for a 5th, 6th, 8th, and 9th grader what would a weekly schedule look like out of copywork, dictation, recitation, poetry, memory work, grammar, writing? Of course assigned reading and narration would be daily, I assume.   If you all have the time I would appreciate your examples.

Sure, I can give you a general overview of how I would handle CM language arts at those grade levels.

5th grade-8th grade: Copywork daily with dictation from the same passage once a week and instead of copywork.

We don’t do much recitation in our home. My daughter and I take turns reading poetry together once a week. I choose 2 poems and she chooses one. We memorize and recite scripture daily using the SCM scripture memory system.

I don’t do grammar until 7th grade or so and then we do it 3 times a week for 2 years.

5th grade-1 written narration a week. I would not correct it at all at this point.

6th grade-2 written narrations a week. I would begin to pick one thing to focus on for each composition-punctuation one week, run on sentences the next and son on.

8th grade-Well my daughter is in 8th grade now and I still only  have her write two narrations a week at this point. She writes fairly long narrations so I am allowing her to remain at 2 a week. If they were short, I would require 3 a week.

9th grade-I think a written narration per day is reasonable for this age. However, I will probably only require 3 a week from my daughter if she continues to write such long, detailed narrations. It all depends on the child IMO.

And, yes, assigned reading and narration are both done daily. I have my daughter read from a classic for about half an hour a day and she narrates orally for all appropriate subjects.

Hope that helps! 🙂